I read it. I agree completely. I don’t have much more to say, because (a) after all my years in academia, I’m really tired of all this – the nepotism, the posturing, etc. – and (b) now that I’m no longer an academic, I don’t have to deal with it anymore, thank goodness.

Yeah, many of these problems are standard human behavior that you encounter everywhere, but there is a certain type of posturing that gets taken to extremes in academia that you just don’t see anywhere else.

That is exactly right; the real problem is the lazy use of proxies for quality, handing over the responsibility for evaluating the work of young scientists to the editorial staff of these journals, who’s job it is to publish an exciting journal, not to evaluate promotion packages. The problem is senior faculty who does not take the time to engage with the science of their younger colleagues.